


Vegas

by CoffeeFairy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempt at Humor, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Fluff, Friends to Husbands, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, Sober Confessions, drunken wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeFairy/pseuds/CoffeeFairy
Summary: AU. Keith wakes up the day after Matt's bachelor party in Las Vegas with a hangover and a wedding band on his fourth finger. So does Shiro. As neither remember the night before they have to retrace their steps with the help of their friends.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), background mattor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68





	Vegas

**Author's Note:**

> This is so silly. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

When Keith woke up, he really wished he hadn’t. His throat felt like sandpaper, his mouth tasted like he’d been licking week-old garbage, his head pounded and his stomach was heaving uneasily. In short, it was the worst hangover of his life. Without opening his eyes, Keith thought back to the previous evening. Matt’s bachelor party. Frowning, he realised he couldn’t remember anything past the first bar. He had a feeling, judging by the state of him, that there had been more than one.

Groaning to himself, he dared to crack one eye open. Snapping it shut again, he shuddered. Easy had to do it.

Like a geriatric, he slowly sat up in bed. Fumbling for the way he managed to stumble into the bathroom. Turning the shower to ice cold, he stepped in. Biting back a shriek, he felt his nerve endings respond in revolted shock. Some of the fog in his mind cleared and he turned up the heat. With slow, painful determination, he opened one eye. The bathroom light seemed kinder than sunlight and slowly he blinked until he could see again. Then he had to blink again.

Something was off about his hand, where it was braced against the tiled wall. There was a ring on his fourth finger. Wiggling his fingers, he had to acquiesce it really was his hand. But whose was the ring? On closer inspection, his heart sank. It couldn’t really be...And yet it was. A wedding band. A simple, gold wedding band, on his left hand. It hadn’t been there yesterday. Yesterday he had been painfully single, as Lance liked to remind him, and now he was apparently...married. To someone. He shuddered.  


He couldn’t have been that stupid, surely? Getting married in Vegas was something drunk frat boys did, not twenty-seven year old office workers. Still too shocked to be anything but numb, he climbed out of the shower. Drying himself quickly, he pulled on clean clothes. With his hair still damp, he ventured across the hall to wake his friend. He needed breakfast like he needed air.

Shiro opened the door, looking worn and sallow for him. Of course that didn’t stop a thrill chasing through Keith at the sight of him all the same. Damn him. Even hungover he looked better than anyone had a right to. Especially on a day when Keith felt like ninety year old crap on toast.

In lieu of a greeting, Shiro just groaned and leaned his head against the door post.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed.

“I’m killing Matt. How did he get me to drink so much?”

“I don’t remember,” Keith answered truthfully. “But I’ll help you get rid of the body.”

“You’re a good friend.” Shiro pushed off the door post and straightened. “I need breakfast.”

They forewent the fancy hotel breakfast for real grease and heaps of carbs at the diner across the street. Taking a booth to the back, Keith tried to tune out the tinny music over the speakers. Some soppy love song or other. Something about it made a half formed memory niggle at him but he couldn't place what it was. A waitress appeared a moment later, filling their cups. The second they’d ordered, they both reached for their mugs and drank deep, grateful gulps of the coffee.

That was when Keith spotted it. He hadn’t seen it before as Shiro’s sleeves had hung down but now it glinted innocently in the morning sunlight. Keith tried to swallow the coffee and only managed to force it down his airways. Coughing and gasping for air, his eyes teared up.  


“Are you all right?” Shiro asked with a concerned frown.

“Shiro, your...on your hand.”

A cold, sinking sensation fell inside him.

  
Across the table, Shiro was staring, his mouth open.

“No.” He looked shocked. “No, I wouldn’t have. It’s...It’s not possible.”

“Shiro…” Keith reached over the table. Slowly, his friend looked up. “Shiro, I…”

His words failed him and instead he lifted his left hand that he’d kept carefully under the table. He saw Shiro’s eyes settle on it, widen even further.

“You...We…” He swallowed audibly. “We married _each other_?”

Across the table, Shiro’s eyes were dark and pained. 

“I… I don’t know.”

  
o.O.o

A frantic search through their rooms ended in sinking horror. Behind the oak veneered desk in Keith’s room was a cheap paper headed “Certificate of Marriage”. It was dated that same day, confirming that Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane were now declared husbands joined by law, courtesy of the “Celestial Temple of Divine Love”. Keith had never seen his signature look less like his actual name but couldn’t deny it was his own handwriting. Judging from Shiro’s face, he was realizing the same. 

“This can’t be true. We wouldn’t do this.”

“I…” Keith let his hands fall, ran a hand through his hair. The wedding band he had forgotten was there caught a strand and he grimaced. Untangling it, he shook his head. 

“I would like to think I wouldn’t, but the proof is pretty incriminating.”

“But...How...How drunk did we have to be for neither of us to remember this?” He waved to the printed marriage certificate.  


“I don’t know but...I think we have to...Have to talk to the others. Retrace our steps. Figure this out.” At “this” he waved uselessly in the air between them. 

Shiro straightened, nodded. “You’re right.”

  
  


o.O.o

  
  


The first person they managed to find was Pidge. She was sitting in the hotel restaurant shovelling scrambled eggs mechanically into her mouth and squinting at her copy of “The Astrophysics Journal”. She looked a bit bleary eyed but otherwise normal, and they sat down at her table. 

“Hey,” she greeted them. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith responded dryly as Shiro inhaled the coffee from Pidge’s cup under her unimpressed gaze. 

“We…” He glanced at Shiro who grimaced slightly. Both of them kept their left hands under the table, shielded by the linen tablecloth in silent mutual agreement. “...wondered when you left yesterday?”

Pidge turned the page in the journal with a one shouldered shrug. “About one-ish. Lance was doing the worst rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” I have ever heard. Sounded mostly like “Mark Will Goon”.”

Shiro and Keith exchanged a glance. “So, still at the first bar?”

“Sure, where else would it have been?” She looked up from the journal. “Did you guys go on after that?”

“Ah…”

She raised an amused eyebrow. “You don’t know, do you?”

Shamefacedly, the two of them shook their heads. 

Pidge chuckled. “So that’s what this is about. You want to figure out what happened last night. Well, I’m sorry, when I left you were having some weirdly intense discussion in the corner booth. Matt and Allura were dancing, Lance had taken the karaoke machine and anyone with ears hostage, and Hunk was eating fried chicken that it looked like they served in buckets. That’s the last I saw before leaving. Maybe try Hunk, he was still quasi-coherent at that point.”

“Thanks, Pidge.”

  
  


o.O.o

  
  


Hunk, pale and red-eyed but freshly showered and dressed obliged them with his last memories of the night before as they took the elevator from his floor to the ground floor where he was going to find his breakfast. 

“We went to a club, I think it was Lance’s idea. Matt called Lotor who insisted it had to be this really fancy one and paid the cover for all of us with a transfer or something. It was on the top floor and roof terrace of one of the casinos, I forget which one.” He stifled a yawn.

“We went to a club yesterday?” Shiro looked flabbergasted.

Keith couldn’t blame him, he couldn’t remember himself the last time he’d been to a club. He disliked people in his personal space, loud music - and on principle - sticky floors, so he hadn’t gone to one since his early college days. 

“I was starting to fade around then. Lance was insisting on shots, Allura and I managed to pour ours out without him noticing. Lotor had called the club ahead of us and managed to get us some kind of VIP booth. Then they played some song you two really liked so you popped up and disappeared to dance. That’s the last I saw of you.”

Keith didn’t have to look at Shiro to sense his disbelief. Neither of them were big on dancing.

“I left pretty soon after that, got back to my room a bit after two.”

“Right. Thanks, Hunk.”

  
  


o.O.o

  
  


Allura, the one they guessed had been in the best shape at the next stage of the evening opened the door to her room looking like she’d slept under the bed rather than on it. Naturally beautiful she was still human enough to look sallow-skinned and heavy-eyed this morning. Smudges of make-up still skirted her eyes and her hair was half up in the hair-do it had been in last night, half down.

She greeted at the door with a groan. “I am killing Matt.”

“Get in line,” Keith replied. 

The blonde chuckled darkly before padding back to the unmade bed and flopping back on it. An elegant hand wave signalled for them to come on in. 

“I haven’t had this much to drink in...I don’t know what I’m saying, I’ve never had that much to drink. How did Matt convince me?”

  
  
“No idea. We’re wondering the same thing,” Shiro said. “And…”

Keith noticed his left hand was carefully stuck in his pocket. “We sort of wondered if you could help us piece together something from last night. We…” He glanced to Keith. “Our memories aren’t...stellar.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to think about last night. Just the thought makes me taste vodka in the back of my throat.”

“Yeah, I...We heard that we went to that club and then it gets a bit fuzzy.”

Allura sat up, wide eyed. “You mean...You mean you don’t remember?”

“Remember what? Did something happen at the club?”

Her hand came up to cover her mouth. For a second Keith was terrified she’d start crying. Then he heard the undignified snorting. Allura was laughing and trying not to.

“Oh. Oh. Oh, I can’t believe...That….You wouldn’t remember…”

“Remember what, Allura?” Shiro asked with a patience Keith admired.

“The _kiss_!”

“The what?”

“The kiss? You kissed!”

“That’s…” Shiro glanced at him. “Are you sure you remember this right?”

Shifting to get more comfortable, Allura shook her hair back. “Matt had been going on about love all night, how great it is, how he wants everyone to find it, to have what he and Lotor has and how he’s going to help all his friends to do it and blah blah blah. He kept pushing all of us through the night to strike up conversations with people, adamantly stating he was the best wingman in the skies. I don’t know what that means exactly but he’d been at it all night. We were all pretty tired of hearing it. So at this point he is _really_ drunk, and he spots someone out in the club who is “totally checking Shiro out”,” she said using air quotes to show it was in verbatim.

Keith could believe it, hearing Matt, the screechy tone his voice took on when he was drunk, in his head. Without issue he could also picture some hot six foot two guy giving Shiro the eye across a crowded room, sweaty bodies writhing between them. Ignoring the hot vice closing around his heart at the thought, he tuned back in to Allura’s story.

“...so then you said “there’s no one out there I want to kiss, Matt” and he sighs all dramatically. Then he gets this look in his eye, really devious. And he goes “does that means there’s someone _in here_ you’d like to kiss?”

She tucked some hair behind her ear and Keith felt his guts move uneasily in a way that had nothing to do with his excessive alcohol consumption. 

“So you start shaking your head, saying no, that wasn’t what you meant. But you know how Matt gets. Like a terrier with a bone. So he’s just talking over you, pointing to me, stating it’s not me because you are - I’m sorry, I’m just quoting - “gay as Christmas morning”.”

“Sounds like Matt all right," Shiro shrugged.  


“And it’s not him, because if you’d been into him at all there was no way you’d been able to resist “this hot bod for this long”. I believe you told him he was too much of an idiot for you to ever entertain the idea, which he ignored to just go on. He said it couldn’t be Lance because he had the “sex appeal of a chipmunk” and then he turned to Keith. He was swaying in place, you looked terrified, and he lights up in this triumphant smile. He points, like he’s denouncing a witch or something, saying “whereas _you_ ,”” she nodded to Keith who had no problem following the story. 

His hands were sweating and his heart beat heavy in his chest and he wondered if his memory had kindly kept this stress from him so he wouldn’t have to relive it. 

“”Whereas you,”” she picked up again, “”you’re textbook Shiro’s type. Bit edgy, handsome, skinny, big Bambi eyes. I bet you all the vodka in this bar, he means you.””

Keith’s throat was dry and Shiro was refusing to look at him. His heart was doing 120 on a straight run, pistons thundering. 

“So you shake your head, mumble under your breath. Keith’s looking everywhere but at you. I’m trying to pull Matt down to sit, to leave it. No such luck,” she sighed lightly. “He tilts his head, narrows his eyes like he’s some sort of cop in a police drama. “So you’re saying you  _ don’t _ want to kiss Kogane?””

“At this point I’m afraid one of you is going to punch him. You told him, quietly, and really scarily, to be quiet. Matt just rambles on, asking “Well, what’s wrong with him? Why wouldn’t you want to kiss him?”

Allura did a fair imitation of drunk Matt, swaying slightly in place, still pointing, vowels slurred.  


“Instead of getting up and leaving like a sane person in the face of insanity, you respond. Still quiet, “There’s nothing wrong with him Matt.” Matt goes “So what’s stopping you, then?”. At that point I think you started looking defeated, so you turn to Keith.”

Keith’s eyes widened. His arms crossed of themselves as if he could shield himself from something that happened the night before and that he couldn’t remember.

“And the next second you kiss him, like a peck, and then turn to Matt “There, I did it, happy?” Matt wasn’t happy. He keeps going on about how pecks are the bane of romance and that you have to put some effort in or you might as well be in a retirement home, pecking because neither of you have any teeth left. So he’s goading you to do it again. To do it properly.”

She sighed and leaned back against the headboard. “I am thinking you’re going to kill your best friend at his own bachelor party but then Keith reaches for you, turns your head. I’m telling you, I felt time stilling myself. It looks like a movie filmed in slow motion, you’re leaning closer. I manage to finally tug Matt down to sit and he’s staring like he can’t believe what’s happening before his eyes. I don’t think any of us did. Then suddenly you’re kissing and it’s like a shockwave goes off. I wasn’t in any way involved but, _phew_ , the second hand heat of that kiss...I’ll remember it forever.”

Rooted to the spot, Keith could only stare at Allura. He had kissed Shiro? Not that it was new to him that he wanted to. He’d wanted to kiss Shiro since the second they’d met years ago. But they had ended up as friends and then it had been too late and he couldn’t risk a friendship that meant more to him than life. So he always kept that part locked away, hidden, terrified that one day the wall would crumble and he’d end up doing something stupid. Something like what he’d apparently done yesterday. 

“You break apart, breathing hard, staring at each other like you found a million dollars in your mattress filling and can’t believe it. Then Keith mumbles something, gets up, and Shiro you follow. I left right after that and the last I saw of you, you were making out in a corner behind this large potted palm.”

When they left Allura’s room, Shiro closed the door gently, then leaned against it. Both silent, they stared at the non-descript abstract painting on the wall opposite. Keith’s mind was reeling. Shiro had kissed him. Had all but said he wanted to. Keith had kissed Shiro. They’d been making out at the last sight Allura had of them. 

“I…” Shiro’s voice was quiet, wondering. Nothing followed and Keith wasn’t surprised. He had no idea what to say either.

He didn’t know for how long they’d been standing in the hall when he pulled himself together. They still didn’t know how they’d gone from making out to apparently married. 

“Let’s find Lance.”

o.O.o

  
  


Lance didn’t open the door himself but they assumed the long groan they heard in response to the knock meant “come in”. They found him in the bathroom, dressed in his underwear still, lying in the bath tub with the shower running. Keith thought he looked like a lizard where he was hanging, half in and half out of the tub.

“You okay?” Shiro asked with concern.

Lance’s voice was rough when he responded, “Hanging in there.” Then he brightened slightly. “But more importantly, how are the two newly-weds?”

Keith's knees almost gave out. He sat down on the closed toilet. Behind him Shiro made a soft noise of surprise. 

“You...you know?”

“I believe I’m not the only one who knows, but sure I do.”

“What? Who else knows?”

“Oh, I don’t know, everyone who was at the Starburst Diner yesterday at four in the morning when Shiro proposed?”

“I _what_?” 

If he hadn’t been so shocked, Keith would have laughed at Shiro’s high-pitched disbelief. It was more like a squeak than anything else.

“I know, not the most romantic setting. Then again, Kogane wouldn’t know romance if it bit him on the ass.”

“But…”

“Lance, we…” He glanced back to Shiro. “We don’t actually...remember last night. So...we spoke to Allura, we know about the...Uh...the kiss. Then...After that, nothing.”

Lance squinted up at them from the bathtub. “That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.” Gesturing weakly the pointed to a heap of clothes that smelled like Keith would pay money not to touch them. “Hand me my phone.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Fine. I got the proposal on video though.”

With a sigh of disgust, Keith dug out the phone from the pile. Lance fiddled with the lock, scrolling. “Oh, that’s a lot of selfies, and...oh. Well, hopefully I didn’t send  _ those  _ selfies to anyone…”

“Lance…”

“Cool your jets, I’m finding it...Here we are. We went to the Diner cause Matt was hungry and wanted pancakes. I had just been to the bathroom and was coming back when…”

He turned their phone towards them and Keith and Shiro both leaned in. Their shoulders bumped and Keith shifted. On the screen a wobbly video started playing. A Diner that looked eerily similar to the one they’d been at that morning faded into view. 

Lance’s face suddenly filled the screen. He looked drunker than Keith had ever seen him. Weaving between the tables he started speaking into the camera.

“Bachelor Party, Part 23. Pit stop for pancakes before we hit the casinos, going to take home the jackpot for sure, buy a mansion, and complete my Beanie Baby collection. Here we are, the brave few who have held out the longest, grabbing some short stacks for the road…”

He turned the camera from his face to a table ahead of him. 

Squinting to try and see despite the quality Keith spotted himself sitting in a booth, Matt across from him with his back to the camera. From the Diner speakers a tinny rendition of some 90s love ballad was playing. Then Shiro got up from the table, swaying slightly. Then to Keith’s absolute shock, he sank down on one knee.

Behind the camera they heard Lance’s voice excitedly chanting “oh, oh, oh, oh,” and his steps quickening. The sound of Shiro’s voice filtered in through the din of the surprisingly busy Diner. Around him people were stopping what they were doing, and the noise quietened as everyone listened.

“...aited long enough. I love you, Keith. I always have, I always will. I’ve known from the moment I met you. So...will you marry me?”

Keith saw the drunk self he had no memory of stare in shock at his friend. The Diner was holding its collective breath. Present Keith was too. Then Drunk Keith laughed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll marry you. I love you - why wait?”

The Diner erupted in cheers and applause. At the table, Shiro stood up, grinning, and Keith got to his feet. A moment later they were kissing. The impact travelled through Keith from his scalp to his soles, buzzing like electricity through his veins. He had dreamed of kissing Shiro uncountable times, and yet he was watching himself doing it in a grainy video with no memory of ever doing it. He swore to himself he’d never drink again. 

Lance’s face suddenly filled the screen again and he was all but screaming. “Did you see that? Did you see that? Kogane and Shirogane, after years of denial go from zero to two hundred. What a one-eighty!” His whoops continued as the video disintegrated to dark outlines, sounds of back slaps and congratulations, and Matt’s drunk voice. 

“I think it was Matt’s idea we head right to the chapel after that. I don’t have the wedding video as I was officiating. It’s on Matt’s phone.”

“You…” Keith wasn’t sure how much more he could take. “ _You_ married us?”

“Yeah. The chapel had this registry, you just had to fill in some details and bam, officiator. You thought it was a great idea to have a friend marry you.”

Keith thought that if anything proved just how drunk he had been last night, it was stating that Lance would be a good choice for officiating a marriage ceremony. 

“I...I’m…”

“Oh,” Lance paled. “Oh, I think it’s time again. I didn’t think there was anything left to come up.”

Hurriedly they both left him to it and before they could sink into stunned silence, Keith spoke.

“We have to see that video. Maybe Lance doesn’t remember it right. It could be a fake place, fake certificate.”

Shiro nodded, pale faced. Neither mentioned that while the chapel, the ceremony and the certificate could be fake, the proposal hadn’t been. There was photographic evidence of every single thing Shiro had said. 

And of Keith’s acceptance. 

o.O.o

  
  


Matt was, if possible, in worse shape than Lance. He was still in bed when they entered, curtains drawn, and with a smell of stale alcohol thick enough to cut it from the air around him. 

“Food? Did you bring food?”

“That’s your first question? We got married after that stunt you pulled yesterday and you think about _food_?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Matt said, burrowing under the covers. His tone sounded like this was of mild interest, as if Shiro had reminded him it was going to rain today. 

“Lance says...Lance says you have a video of it.”

“You need to watch it again already? I thought that was like an anniversary thing.”

“We need to watch it, because we don’t remember it happening,” Shiro said through clenched teeth. 

At that a laugh that sounded like a spoon stuck in a garbage disposal escaped Matt. “Oh, you’re kidding!”

“Your phone, Matt.”

Snorting like a pig looking for truffles Matt managed to unhook his phone from the charger. “Here.”

The video showed a room that looked like it would appear in a horror film set in a doll’s house. All pink and white, with shiny curtains in heavy drapes. The windows were lit behind them to give a disconcerting day light in the room no matter the time of day. Gilt overwrought decorations and plaster columns completed the image of regurgitated bad taste from the 80’s. 

At the altar - Keith assumed that was what it was - he and Shiro stood facing each other under a teflon fabric baldachin in old lady pink. Lance stood between them with an open book in his hands. It was upside down, Keith could see even from the small screen. Shiro looked happy, a beatific smile on his handsome face. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his collar undone and a very prominent hickey showed. Keith blushed. Across from him was Drunk Keith, who looked like he’d been administered nitrous gas by a dentist who’d erred on the side of caution as to volume. 

“Dearly beloved,” the plastered Lance began, squinting out over the empty rows of white, tulle wrapped chairs. “We are gathered here today to witness the joining of these two idiots in holy matrimony. If any person here can show cause why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“Nobody better talk!” Matt hissed from behind the camera. The fact that there was no one there to object but him seemed lost on him. 

At the gaudy altar, Lance continued. “Marriage is a sacred union between two people and shall remain unbroken. It is the basis of a stable and loving relationship and is a joining of two hearts, bodies and souls. You are there to support one another and provide love and care in times of joy and in times of adversity.”

Keith was rather sure that the time Lance had told him he didn’t watch romantic films was a lie. There was no way he could read upside down in his state and there was no cheat sheet hidden in the book. Lance was doing it from memory. As he had to have numbed most of his brain but the reptilian part, only intense repetition would ensure this level of detailed recount. 

“We are all here today to witness the joining in wedded bliss of Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane. This joyous day celebrates the commitment and love with which Shiro and Keith start their lives together. Through the power vested in me, you are joined together in the most sacred of bonds. Who gives these men to each other in holy matrimony?”

“I do!” Matt called from behind the camera. Keith thought he heard choked back tears in his voice.

Lance, with a light in his eyes that terrified Keith, waded on. “Do you, Shiro, take Keith to be your lawfully wedded husband and live together forever in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love, comfort, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse for as long as you both shall live? Even when he’s grumpy for no reason, or forgets to buy toothpaste when you’ve asked him and when he’s got the flu and is a giant pain in the ass?”

Keith hadn’t been to a lot of wedding but even he knew what was coming. Staring at the little screen he saw Shiro smile. It was a soft little smile, full of affection and somehow it made Keith feel as if he was peeping on something incredibly private. It was a smile exchanged between lovers. His hands tightened around Keith’s for a moment, then he spoke clearly, for a moment appearing close to sober.

“I do.”

Unmistakable sniffles were heard from behind the camera and between the grooms, Lance blinked rapidly. His eyes were glassy but Keith couldn’t tell if it was from emotions or tequila. 

“And…” Emotion, he placed. His friend’s voice got croaky when he was touched. “And, do you, Keith, take Shiro to be your lawfully wedded husband and live together forever in the holy estate of matrimony? Do you love, comfort, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse for as long as you both shall live?”

Keith held his breath, watching the version of himself he had no memory of being. He didn’t smile as Shiro had, but his face softened, every facet gentling. 

“I do.”

The camera was visibly shaking now, Matt’s sniffles getting wetter. From his pocket Lance drew two simple rings. Keith had no reason to doubt one of them wasn’t the one currently around his fourth finger. 

“The wedding ring is an unbroken symbol of the everlasting love and commitment between you. Shiro, repeat after me: With this ring, I thee wed.”

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Shiro repeated, his deep voice solemn. He slid the band over Keith’s finger and watching it back, his throat tightened. 

“Keith, repeat after me: With this ring, I thee wed.”

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Keith echoed. His voice had something he’d never heard in it before. A certainty, a strength.

Lance looked incredibly pleased and shut the book he’d never once looked down into. 

“What I have joined together, let no man put asunder. With the power vested in me by this chapel and the state of officiatenow.com, I now pronounce you married. You may kiss your husband.”

On Matt’s phone screen Keith and Shiro grinned at each other before leaning in to kiss. A blush reappeared on Keith’s cheeks at the sight of it. The kiss was long, intense and with some obvious elements of beyond PG-13. Before he could tell Matt to turn it off in fear they’d start shedding clothes right there in the chapel, Lance thankfully interrupted them.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re married, not just out of prison.” Then he hugged them both, pressing a kiss to each other their cheeks in turn. “Congratulations, morons. I’m really happy for you.”

The video ended and Matt wheezed. “Any light bulbs? Remember that you’re mr and mr?”

Apparently their faces said enough. The blonde man sighed. “Look, this isn’t so bad. You’ve skipped the hardest part - the asking out, the dating, the living together. You’ve just sped up the process. And if it doesn’t work out, Lotor can handle your divorce for free.” He stifled a yawn and slumped back on the bed.

Heart-sick in the face of Matt’s flippancy, Keith looked away. 

They left him to his hangover and without discussing it, walked out together, down the corridor to Keith’s room. 

For several minutes, neither of them said anything. 

“This is…” Shiro didn’t finish the sentence but Keith knew all the same.

“Yeah. It is.”

The silence fell again. Keith sat on the bed, staring down at his clasped hands. The wedding band shone like it was lit from within on his hand. 

“I...I guess we need to decide where to go from here.”

Keith knew Shiro’s view on marriage. He’d grown up with his grandparents who had one of the happiest relationships Keith had ever encountered. In Shiro’s mind there had never been a view that you could get married more than once. Once and forever was his philosophy. It was one reason he’d never married his long time boyfriend Adam. Because if it was once and forever then infatuation or even love wouldn’t cut it, it had to be more than that. He’d told him once he was looking for the certainty. When he found the one he wanted, he’d feel it. The knowledge he’d never need to look again, never doubt. And now, an alcohol induced decimation of inhibitions had ended the dream Shiro had held since he was barely in his teens. 

_ But he was the one who proposed _ , a little voice whispered in the back of Keith’s mind. 

“Yeah.” Keith agreed without enthusiasm. 

He wasn’t worried about being a twenty-seven year old divorcee. He’d never seen his parents’ marriage, had no high hopes for succeeding in one of his own. But Shiro was different. If he ever married, he’d be so lucky to get someone who even reminded him of his friend. 

“I guess Lotor can draw up divorce papers when we get back,” he continued, voice dull.

Shiro, sitting in the ugly desk chair, hunched over. His eyes trailed the skirting board at the other end of the room. “So you...you want to divorce then?”

Keith didn’t think his face would have looked any different if Shiro had slapped him. Surprise and disbelief muzzled him. 

“You...You’re right. Of course we should.” Shiro continued, then gave a little humourless laugh. His voice was quiet, almost whispered.

Feeling as if he was walking on a tightrope above a pool of broken glass, Keith clenched his hands together. 

“You...You don’t...You don’t want that?”

“Keith…” Shiro’s voice was pained, as if he was hurting him. The gray eyes that lived in his mind’s eye every time Shiro wasn’t with him, turned to his. “I was drunk last night but I didn’t lie. I’m not saying I wish this is how it happened, but I only spoke the truth. I do…” His hands tightened, his voice hoarsening. Fear like a hunted animal’s moved in his eyes. And still he fought on, kept going. The courage he possessed awed Keith. “I do love you. I always have. I have dreamed about ways we would...end up together. I never wanted it to be this way but...I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Keith. I’ve really ruined everything.”

He buried his face in his hands, the wide shoulders trembling.

As if outwith of his control, Keith got to his feet jerkily. A puppet to his inner emotions, his brain reluctantly watching. Kneeling in front of Shiro, he put his hands to his wrists, pulling his hands away. Praying for a scrap of the courage Shiro had, he cleared his throat. His voice still came out hoarse.

“I didn’t lie either.”

Shiro’s eyes searched his, a frown forming. “You…”

“I meant everything I said too, Shiro. I love you. I’d marry you again if you asked now, sober. It’s...I never thought…”

“But...You never said anything?”

“Neither did you!” He sighed, backtracked. “I...I haven’t had the best run of luck in life. I met you and you were like something out of a dream. I never thought you could ever like me that way. I was too...broken, too ugly inside, too awkward. We became friends and I couldn’t believe my luck. It was more than I could ask for and still I...I couldn’t help wishing...Wishing that you’d...That one day you’d see me as something more.”

Above him Shiro’s eyes were wide, surprise and wonder painting with wide brush strokes over his even features.

“You…” Shiro started. “You just seemed so…” He shook his head, his face softening. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. We’re here now.”

Digging for the last scraps of the courage, bottoming out in his chest, the scraping almost palpable under his breastbone, he let out a shuddered breath. Shifting so he was one one knee instead of two, he pulled Shiro’s hand to rest properly in his.

“Takashi Shirogane…Would you stay married to me so I can date you?”

Shiro laughed, a little wetly. “Yes! Yes, of course I will.” 

As he leaned down and Keith was getting up, the kiss almost knocked their teeth out. All it did was make them laugh before breathlessly getting it right. The awkward angle was solved and their lips met. The moment the taste of Shiro met his tongue a lightning strike flashed in Keith’s mind. Memories from the night lit up in stark relief, all crystal clear and fully formed. There were moments missing but he remembered Shiro’s face coming close to his, the first kiss, a tiny fizzle, then reaching out for him again. He remembered making out, a palm frond tickling the back of his neck. He remembered the Diner, Shiro standing in front of him in the ugly chapel, his deep voice and the solemn “I do”. 

Breaking away, he breathed, “I remember!”

“I...I do too. That’s weird.”

“It is...but I’m really glad I remember marrying you.”

“Same.”

“But…”

“What?”

Keith bit his lip and glanced up from under his lashes. “We never got our wedding night.”

Shiro’s eyes widened a fraction before a wolfish smile flashed over his face. “Let’s fix that.”

Then with a laugh they fell back on the bed.

**Epilogue**

One Year Later

“...so by the power vested in me, you have reaffirmed your love for each other. You may kiss your husband.”

Lance wasn’t weaving in place this time around, and a professional had been hired to capture the video but in many ways Keith was reminded of the day 365 days ago that they had married. Since then they’d dated, moved in together, acquired a puppy and fallen deeper and deeper in love. The commitment ceremony was more for their families and friends than them, but it was nice to have some of the touches they’d missed the first time around. Like cake. Although Lance maintained the had had cake the first time around, but it had been at a 24 hour gas station and come in a plastic box, apparently with the words “Happy Birthday” on it. Some of the finer details still hadn’t returned to either of them with time but Keith was happy. He remembered the important parts of his wedding day. 

Walking back down the aisle with Shiro’s hand in his, he leaned in closer to whisper,

“Wanna find a closet and do a dress rehearsal for the wedding night?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed, I certainly had fun writing it!


End file.
